The Thesis vs. WordPress war was just catching up but could not go far as it was compelled to use open source licensing finally. If you were not following, Thesis theme developer Chris Pearson was interviewed a few days ago when he spilled the beans regarding his profits from Thesis.

This was enough to upset WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, who wanted Thesis to respect the open source License WordPress is based on. Thesis has maintained a low profile and saved itself from the attention of FOSS fanatics. However, the recent interview fired up the FOSS community fueled by Mullenweg’s tweets. This was enough to force Pearson to accept that his code indeed used some of open source and now, Thesis is available under a split GPL.

Does that mean we all can use Thesis now? No. This move will hardly affect anyone. The split GPL Thesis is using will make the PHP part of the code open keeping back the JavaScript and the CSS. However, this was necessary at the same time. Pearson had to keep his business based on Thesis.

Matt Mullenweg was of the opinion,

Even if Thesis hadn’t copy and pasted large swathes of code from WordPress (and GPL plugins) its PHP would still need to be under the GPL. We write software that empowers and protects the freedoms of users, it’s our Bill of Rights. People should respect that.

The move has saved Thesis from further scrutiny and has ended a cold war between Thesis and WordPress. The last time a tech giant used open source code, the media booed it heavily. This move helped Thesis save its reputation at the same time.

Chinmoy Kanjilal is a FOSS enthusiast and evangelist. He is passionate about Android. Security exploits turn him on and he loves to tinker with computer networks. He rants occasionally at Techarraz.com. You can connect with him on Twitter @ckandroid.